The invention relates to a meeting table.
A meeting table is usually designed in such a way that a plurality of people can comfortably interact with each other from respective positions distributed around the table.
However, increasingly often, in meeting rooms, videoconference systems are connected to the above-mentioned tables.
In such cases, a camera is angled towards the table so that it can frame the people gathered there, and a screen is turned towards the table so that participants can see the images of another meeting room connected in videoconference. Alongside the video reception and transmission system there is a system for the reception and transmission of sound and data.
Videoconference techniques have increasingly spread in recent years, but they have not succeeded in completely eliminating the need for meeting in person. This is mainly due to the difficulty in picking up various subtle aspects of the gestures, voices and facial expressions of the participants present in a remote meeting room.
To at least partly solve said problem, and in particular to improve both the camera framing angles and the screen viewing angles, the videoconference system is usually installed so that it abuts the table, thus sacrificing a certain number of working positions around the table. Obviously, according to said solution, the table can always be moved or the videoconference system removed. However, in practice, such a possibility is almost always renounced, and in fact, already at the meeting room design stage, often it is expected that a meeting table will be sized and/or shaped specifically so that it can permanently abut a videoconference system.
At the same time, the capacity for simulating physical interaction between remote meeting rooms has significantly increased thanks to new telepresence technologies.
Unlike in videoconference systems, in the more recent telepresence systems for each sector of the meeting table there is a respective high definition directional audio-video system. More specifically, a camera and a high definition screen, a microphone and a system of loudspeakers, preferably multi-channel. Data transfer takes place using standard IP technology and requires an integrated audio/video/data network.
In that way, each participant can see another participant in real time, by means of high definition images (1920×1080 native) and life-size (1:1). At the same time, the audio system positions the voice in such a way as to give the impression that it is coming from the person on the screen.
Obviously, compared with a simpler videoconference system, the greater number cameras, screens, microphones and loudspeakers, as well as more complex wiring, resulted in the design of meeting rooms and meeting tables specifically designed for telepresence purposes.
In particular there are prior art solutions involving a meeting table, on one side of which, opposite the positions of the real participants, one or more high definition screens rise up. The latter show symmetrically an identical, virtual meeting table, which is physically located in a remote position but which appears to be facing the real table. In that way, the positions of the real participants are facing, in a realistic fashion, the positions of the virtual participants, as if the latter were actually present in the room. For example, a virtual table for twelve participants may be produced using two real tables, each at a location remote from the other, having six seats on one side and three high definition screens on the opposite side.
Obviously, a meeting table designed for the use indicated above is, also in this case, difficult to use in a more traditional context. The significant size of the high definition screens positioned on one side of the table only allows actual use of the opposite half of the table. For the same reason, the entire meeting room designed for telepresence is difficult to use as a traditional meeting room, leading to an obvious waste of space and resources.